It’s the middle of summer, but the ads have started coming already. Buy backpacks and shoes and pencils, lunch boxes, book covers, shirts, slacks, shorts.
We spend nine months getting through school and then another three months selling them gear, garbage, puff, fluff and Spam (and I really mean Spam…the other Lunch Meat) to go back there.
Even though Labor Day and the beginning of school is far off, you can begin to see that glimmer of hope and eagerness beginning to betray itself. The gear just starts those juices flowing.
Those tendrils begin to show at odd times, early mornings, late afternoons, when they don’t think they’re being watched. Little grins and slivers appear randomly. The complaints begin to taper off. The moans and whines stop being repetitive, and get replaced by moments of pure silence and peace.
I don’t know about you, parents, but I absolutely adore the beginning of school.
Pack ’em up and send them back to public, private, charter, independent, religious, military, foreign, boarding, liberal and conservative. Love them and shove them … out that door, onto the bus, walking, running, happy or sad. Aim them for school and yell Hallelujah!
O.K., O.K., so kids go through bouts of anxiety and temerity. It can be terrifying to go back to school. I remember those days well, when one-half of you aches to go back to school to see your friends, make new friends, get the heck away from your folks, when boys chase girls, girls chase boys, and both sexes tell the other side they have Cooties. One-half of you is screaming inside your skull, tearing and scratching at your skull, “No, No, No. Don’t make me go to that evil school!” and the final half straddles the wall between both fear and fun.
Being a kid is tough. You think you know everything already and demonstrate just the opposite to your parents at the least provocation. You won’t find me being entirely sensitive to this phenomena. We all went through this phase. Well, some of us went through this phase, and just have a little more trouble advancing beyond it.
I don’t want to trivialize those feelings or come up with a simplistic value statement or judgment. It does seem like we come up with knee jerk reactions. We need to try something or we feel a strong sense of failure. One of the ways we, as adults, have responded to these strong feelings is by sending our kids to camp. I’ve harped on this before.
It makes my mind wrinkle and writhe in pain over how much time we spend sending kids to camp during the summer. We seem to have more camps then institutions of public education. At least it feels that way.
You could count the number of camps we, as children, went to on one hand. We went outside and rode around in circles. That might explain some things, but that’s another story.
In my mind, this growth in Campanalia, is linked to helicopter parents, too much television, sugar, growth hormones in our food chain and microwave radiation and television and movies. Don’t forget the television and movies.
We believe that our childhood was in some way less than perfect; that our children need more in order to succeed. And we provide more and more and spend half our lives pursuing more possibilities sending our children out and away. We see them less and less and become professional drivers, mixing and matching play dates and away games.
So, if I seem confused – on the one hand, wanting to get rid of the kids, and on another hand, remembering those days with both fear and huge expectations. And, on that last remaining hand, trying to protect them and pull them closer then ever before, then you have a pretty good idea of what I think the composite parent looks like today.
Next…What the heck is a Composite Parent?